ny tribes below, wondering at the stars, during
the night season, eating, and sleeping. Thus did I pass away an
existence without pleasure and without pain. As for what my thoughts
were I can hardly say, my knowledge and my ideas were too confined for
me to have any food for thought. I was little better than a beast of
the field, who lies down on the pasture after he is filled. There was
one great source of interest, however, which was to listen to the
sleeping talk of my companion, and I always looked forward to the time
when the night fell and we repaired to our beds. I would lie awake for
hours, listening to his ejaculations and murmured speech, trying in vain
to find out some meaning in what he would say--but I gained little; he
talked of "that woman"--appearing to be constantly with other men, and
muttering about something he had hidden away. One night, when the moon
was shining bright, he sat up in his bed, which, as I have before said,
was on the floor of the cabin, and throwing aside the feathers upon
which he had been lying, scratched the mould away below them and lifted
up a piece of board. After a minute he replaced everything, and lay
down again. He evidently was sleeping during the whole time. Here, at
last, was something to feed my thoughts with. I had heard him say in
his sleep that he had hidden something--this must be the hiding-place.
What was it? Perhaps I ought here to observe that my feelings towards
this man were those of positive dislike, if not hatred; I never had
received one kind word or deed from him, that I could recollect. Harsh
and unfeeling towards me, evidently looking upon me with ill-will, and
only suffering me because I saved him some trouble, and perhaps because
he wished to have a living thing for his companion, his feelings towards
me were reciprocated by mine towards him. What age I was at the time my
mother died, I know not, but I had some faint recollection of one who
treated me with kindness and caresses, and these recollections became
more forcible in my dreams, when I saw a figure very different from that
of my companion (a female figure) hanging over me or leading me by the
hand. How I used to try to continue those dreams, by closing my eyes
again after I had woke up! And yet I knew not that they had been
brought about by the dim recollection of my infancy; I knew not that the
figure that appeared to me was the shadow of my mother; but I loved the
dreams because